1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a printing apparatus (printer, copier, facsimile machine, multifunction printer, etc.), a printing control apparatus, and a printing system which are connected to a network. More particularly, the invention relates to a technique to limit power usage during a printing operation of the printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known a printing system in which one or more external apparatuses, such as Personal Computers (PCs), and one or more printing apparatuses are connected to a network such as a Local Area Network (LAN), and in which the printing apparatuses execute printing independently of each other. In this printing system, each of the printing apparatuses starts a printing operation immediately after receiving a print instruction from any of the external apparatuses.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-146465 (Paragraph [0006], FIG. 1), there has also been known a printing control apparatus (print server) which selects a printing apparatus suitable for print data transmitted from an external apparatus from among multiple printing apparatuses on a network, and then causes the selected printing apparatus to execute printing.